1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to interactions with terminal devices having a user interface to display information, and more particularly to a method and system for capturing, tracking, storing, augmenting and replaying the displayed information encountered during one or more interactive session, wherein the one or more interactive session involves a series of screen displays.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various information is accessed through wide area networks (WAN) such as the Internet. The content of these wide area networks is dynamic, information is always being added and deleted. Information available at one time may be unavailable at a later time because a user may not save it when it was available or its source may have been deleted, or it may be still available but the user is not quite sure of its location. In other cases, one desires to see how others proceed with interactions with provided information.
Computing devices enable users to interact with various information streams such as interaction with various web sites over the Internet. These interactions are typically achieved via hardware devices including a display device and a user interface (i.e., a keyboard and a pointing device). In order to instruct a computing system to perform a task, a user may type a command on a keyboard or make a selection from a menu or button bar using a pointing device (e.g., a mouse or touch pad). In response to the user's input, the computing system may display text on the display device, display an image or play a sound, all of which provides an indication to the users of the results of their interaction.
Selectively preserving some of these interactions is akin to transmitting the information associated with a particular interaction from the present to the future. There is therefore a need for information retention, source identification, and processing services associated with the transmitted information from designated terminal devices. Additionally, since this information must be stored for future access, there is also a need for information annotation (i.e., from where, for who and when).